Bad Trip for Rogers

The trouble started before Secretary of State William Rogers arrived. In Bogota, thousands of Colombian students boycotted classes to protest his 17-day tour through eight Latin American nations. Others blocked the main highway from midtown Bogota to the airport. By the time Rogers arrived, however, most of the students had been dispersed by police, and the official motorcade zipped into the capital without incident.

As Richard Nixon has reason to remember from his 1958 experience in Caracas, Latin American student protests against visiting U.S. dignitaries are nothing new. Nonetheless, the Bogota protests symbolized the continent's coolness toward Rogers' tour.

Before leaving Washington two weeks ago, he grandly described his swing through Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Jamaica as "the most important trip to Latin America by a Secretary of State in the past 40 years." In fact, it may end up as a diplomatic fiasco. If so, Washington will have to bear a large share of the blame.

In recent years, the U.S.

has been so preoccupied with such larger matters as the war in Viet Nam and detente with the Soviet Union and China that it has virtually ignored its neighbors to the south. To many Latin Americans, Washington's policy has seemed more like "malign neglect" than benign neglect; a low profile by the U.S. south of the border meant a low priority for Latin America north of it.

Among other matters, some Latin Americans are unhappy about a U.S.

veto last March of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a draft treaty guaranteeing Panama's claim to sovereignty over the Canal Zone. They are miffed, and also a bit puzzled over Nixon's inflexible attitude toward Cuba at a time when the U.S. is actively wooing China and the Soviet Union.

Rogers' trip--a prologue to an expected Nixon visit next February --was designed to show that the U.S.

still cares about Latin America. But it was so hastily arranged that it was viewed by many diplomats as just another example of Yanqui paternalism.

In Buenos Aires, Rogers' itinerary was received so late that at week's end the U.S. embassy had been unable to arrange a meeting between Rogers and President-elect Hector Campora. Rogers apparently lacks the rank to attend some of the diplomatic functions for Campora's inauguration this Friday; he has been shunted off to a Saturday luncheon served for lesser lights.

Punctilious Protocol. Rogers had an even more awkward time in Rio de Janeiro. There he waited for three days before flying to the capital of Brasilia for an official welcome. The reason: his counterpart, Foreign Minister Mario Gibson Barbosa, along with President Emilio Medici and the rest of Brazil's top officialdom, was away on a visit to Portugal. Protocol dictated that Rogers could not see anyone--or leave Rio --until Barbosa returned. He could easily have arranged either to stay at home or to fly back to Rio a day or two early.

The fact that the Brazilian officials stuck punctiliously to their ceremonial visit underscored their feeling about the importance of Rogers' visit.

In Mexico, which also received Rogers with yawning indifference, the Secretary of State was able to smooth over a growing dispute about the Colorado River, which for years has been spilling polluted water into Mexico, ruining its crops. Rogers assured President Luis Echeverria that the U.S. would spend "a good deal of money" to help clean up the river. He also gave his hosts symbolic proof of Washington's willingness to right old wrongs, by returning several pre-Columbian artifacts that were stolen from Mexico and later recovered in California by U.S. officials.

They are part of a much larger cache of relics that will be returned to Mexico by year's end.

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